This is what Mies van der Rohe said.

He was born in Germany. The typical rational rigor of the German nation made him easily stand out from the many architectural masters in the early twentieth century. Like most of his glass and steel structures, through the surface, we can easily see the great wealth left by this modern architect to the twentieth century

In 1886, Mies was born in Germany A mason family from Yatai. If the current Chinese people are still a little familiar with Yashen, it is because a Chinese player, Xie Hui, is playing for the Yashen football club. Few people know that a pioneer of modern architecture took the first step in his life here. Mies had no formal education in architecture. His initial knowledge and understanding of architecture began in his father's masonry workshop and the exquisite ancient buildings in Yashen. It can be said that his architectural ideas are derived from practice and experience. Whether it was an apprenticeship at Bruno Paul's firm in Berlin, or at Peter. Behrens worked as a draftsman or opened his own office in Berlin. These experiences enabled him to devote himself step by step to the earth-shaking changes of the 20th century, and ultimately led to a system of architectural thought that lasted throughout the 20th century. Until now, Mies style followers in the United States and around the world, including China, are still extending and developing this theory.

As a Chinese student, I am far away from Mies in terms of time and space. My first and deepest impression of Mies came from his German Pavilion at the Barcelona International Exposition. The large transparent glass wall, the light structural system, the far-reaching thin roof, and the impression of an open and closed space. . . The whole building is like a fresh wind blowing from the valley, which frees me from the cluttered decorative buildings. "Less is more", "circulation space", "comprehensive space" you can all experience or predict from this short-lived building. Indeed, this is the most classic annotation of Mies' style. It is the most classic portrayal of this architect who came out of a small German town.

“Less is more”, you can easily taste the meaning of this sentence from thousands of years of traditional Chinese aesthetics and philosophy. The most artistic thing about traditional Chinese painting masters is often not the painted canvas, but the large blank space. When "less is more" came out of Mies's mouth, of course there was no leisure and ease of the Orientals, but only the rigor and rationality of the Germans. Yes, "less" is not blank but streamlined, and "more" is not crowded but perfect. Mies's architectural art relies on structure but is not limited by structure. It arises from structure and in turn requires the careful crafting of structure. “Less is more,” Mies said to his students. “I hope you will understand that architecture has nothing to do with the creation of form.” One such example is the German Pavilion in Barcelona, ??where Germany used to participate in the 1929 World Exposition. In it, you will never see any superfluous things added to the building, no messy decorations, and no changes out of nowhere. There are no weird furnishings. There is only the light and transparent building itself and the continuous circulation space inside and outside it. Similar to this is the Seagram Building in New York built from 1954 to 1958. This skyscraper that seems to rise from the sky is undoubtedly one of the most exquisite buildings in New York. This exquisiteness does not come from the carved moldings inside and outside the building, but from its exquisite structural components, brown glass and simple interior space.

Before the 20th century, architectural forms were not only limited by structure but also by the ideas of the building owners at that time. Among the various forms of Western architecture, numerous decorative pieces and huge structures are their unifying symbols. Only when new structural technologies and new materials are widely used, will architecture undergo fundamental changes. The 20th century is the century of steel and the century of electricity. Before steel and glass were widely used in buildings, a group of advanced thinkers Architects were at the forefront of the movement. Undoubtedly, Mies was such a pioneer. "Less is more" comes from living in such an environment. In Mies's architecture, everything from interior decoration to furniture was streamlined to the point where it could no longer be changed.

We have no way of knowing what kind of inspiration Mies had when he found this most classic quote in the history of modern architecture. In short, it has influenced our world for seventy years now.

"Circulation space" should have been a very avant-garde term at the beginning of the 20th century. I believe that after Mies built the German Pavilion in Barcelona, ??the European architectural world was greatly shocked. Indeed, for those architects who came out of the academy and started in the Shui Chuanshi, and for those architects who were more or less subject to the definitions and restrictions of architecture by various Western ancient architectural schools, this is completely different from the past. Different closed or open spaces - flowing, connected, isolated but not separated spaces create another concept. Interesting thing. In the West, this is a completely new thing, but in the ancient East, famous or unknown literati and garden craftsmen in ancient China already knew and mastered the creation and application of flowing space, and that famous book << Enji gt;gt; theorized it. "The scene changes with each step" and "the virtual and the real complement each other". Suzhou's famous Chinese and foreign gardens are a summary of the thousands of years of thinking of Chinese gardeners. The thousands of mountains and rivers in a small area are their superb understanding and application of circulation space. . "There are no roads in the mountains and rivers, but there is another village with dark willows and bright flowers." Chinese literati's understanding of this kind of space is very similar to Mies van der Rohe.

Unlike Wright, one of the other three architectural masters of the 20th century, Mies never showed any interest or yearning for Chinese culture from beginning to end. But the concept of "circulation space" has amazing similarities with traditional Chinese gardening art. However, just like my previous understanding of Mies's "less is more", the reason why his circulation space is completely different from that of Chinese gardening art, and its difference even prevents ordinary people from connecting the two, is that : This kind of circulation space is rational, orderly, indoor space, and more importantly, it is static.